The golden wind rustles, and the cold woods and streams are solemn.
The water of the Yalu River is winding and graceful. After flowing through Kuandian County, the river becomes more and more turbulent. When it reaches the Tianhua Mountain section in the north, it has strange peaks, dangerous gorges and deep ravines. It's late autumn, and the flaming red maple leaves all over the mountains are reflected in the river. It's quiet and charming. The infinite scenery attracts the surrounding literati and poets to stop and linger.
However, in the autumn of the first year of Wuding, no one was enjoying this great river and mountains.
Two months ago, taking advantage of the civil strife in Qi, the ruler Li Shunyi led 20,000 Korean soldiers to bravely cross the Yalu River and raid Kuandian City. After the Korean army broke through the city, they killed all the Kuandian defenders and captured tens of thousands of Han people and returned home. .
After this battle, six out of ten Han people around Kuandian were wiped out, and the human population was almost eliminated.
At the foothills of Tianhua Mountain, Zhaojia Village.
The autumn wind whistles withered weeds, and the noisy fishing village in the past has been reduced to ghosts, leaving only ruins, broken walls, weeds, and ferocious beasts appearing from time to time.
On the deserted slope at the head of Zhaojia Village, there is a patch of sweet sorghum growing crookedly. Because no one has been cleaning it, the weeds in the sorghum field are almost up to the waist.
Click! Click!
There was a harsh biting sound, and a hungry black blind man burst into the dark sorghum field.
The black blind man waved his two thick and sharp bear paws, picked up more than a dozen sorghum stalks into his arms with one slap, and sat down in the sorghum field. His huge body was like a mountain of meat, and there were crackling snaps of shrubs all around. Voice.
The black bear gasped for air while stuffing the sorghum stalks mixed with soil into its big mouth.
With a clicking sound, the sharp fangs crushed the ripe straw into crumbs, and the sweet juice inside dripped into the black bear's throat.
When the blind man drank the sweet water, he suddenly became excited, howling, and a ferocious smile appeared on his black and white bear face.
A sow wild boar came to the village with three piglets. She saw the black blind man munching sorghum from a distance, and she turned around and ran away in fright.
The black bear smelled the wild boar's scent, but didn't care. It continued to eat carelessly, and soon ate up all the sorghum on the wasteland.
The black blind man's body gradually became hot. He opened the bear's paws in front of his chest and stumbled to a large light blue stone beside the ground. He turned over and was about to fall asleep.
The chirping of birds and the chirping of insects around the sorghum field suddenly stopped, everything was silent for a moment, and a strong wind inexplicably broke out in the plains.
The black bear stood up unsteadily, swayed its butt, and looked around.
It didn't matter, as a strong wind blew past, and there was only a thumping sound in the forest, and a big white-fronted insect with an eye-catching appearance jumped out, its tail swept the surrounding trees, making a swishing sound, causing the fallen leaves to scatter.
When the big insect jumped up, it was not as tall as a black bear. It was obviously not an adult tiger. I don't know if it was hungry or thirsty, or if it had a grudge against the blind man in front of it. As soon as they met, it pressed its two paws on the ground. , He Shenwang pounced forward, lifted him down from mid-air, opened his huge mouth, bared his fangs, raised his tail, and flashed lightning flints up the black bear's back, biting violently at the black bear's neck.
The black bear lowered his head, tried his best to protect his neck with his forelimbs, and scratched the ground with his legs.
This half-sized tiger suddenly raised its head to the sky and howled, letting out bursts of howling roars, and the surrounding rocks trembled with the roar of the tiger.
The blind black man who was firmly pressed to the ground suddenly stopped resisting, turned his belly over, stared at the attacking enemy, let out a low whine from his nose, and remained motionless, letting the tiger eat him.
~~~~~~
Jiang Liuer looked up at the valley in the distance, then looked back at the panting old Qian.
"Old Qian, do you hear that? Panasonic is over there,"
Lao Qian ignored Jiang Liu'er, squatted in front of the rugged mountain road with a worn-out waist knife, took out a coconut scoop, and drank some saliva.
Alsa, who was walking at the end, also looked tired. He was carrying a dirty cloth bag, and every step he took was particularly laborious, and he didn't pay much attention to the misty tiger roar in the distance.
"Jiang Liu'er, take a rest under the tree in front, eat some venison, and rest for half an hour. We can reach Kuandian City before dark today."
Alessa walked under the tree, took off the cloth bag on his shoulder, and took out a few pieces of pickled venison for his companions.
Lao Qian took the venison and wolfed down the fried noodles. Jiang Liuer stared blankly into the depths of Tianhua Mountain. After looking for a long time and not hearing the roar of the Panasonic again, he took off the coconut ladle and drank water.
The venison and fried noodles were given to them by a kind-hearted Sauron hunter when they escaped from Nurgan City (Note 1).
Jiang Liu'er chewed the shriveled venison and tried to recall the appearance of the Sauron hunter. More than a month had passed and he didn't know if the family had been eaten by Rakshasa ghosts.
Those Rakshasa ghosts on Kuyi Island will eat everything.
Over the past month, Jiang Liu'er and his three companions escaped from Kuyi Island, avoiding the pursuit of Rakshasa ghosts and heading westward.
Jiang Liuer’s three companions are:
Shenyang fur trader Lao Qian, Haixi Jurchen Alesa, Sakhalin little tiger Panasonic.
Except for these few, everyone else in the northern expedition team was basically dead. To be precise, they were eaten by the Cossacks, including the bony arm of the chief officer Li Sanguang.
Jiang Liu'er and the other three were among the last soldiers at the rear. There were fifty-six people in the team, and they were the only ones left alive.
From the first year of Tianqi to the first year of Wuding, they traveled thousands of miles. No bones of the dead were left, and the living were terrified. Like the Daqi army that was defeated in the pass, the northern expedition suffered heavy losses. More than a thousand people went through hardships for more than three years. A series of supply depots and troop transport depots established in Nurgan City and Sakhalin Island were all destroyed by the Cossacks, and all the soldiers suffered casualties...
Emperor Wu Ding's northern expansion project, like his expansion in Korea and Japan, was a complete failure.
Thanks to the time-travelers (the Battle of Tsushima greatly stimulated the European powers), the Cossacks in this dimension invaded eastward, at least thirty years earlier than the original history.
By the first year of Wuding (1626), the number of Cossack colonists who had arrived in the outer northeast had reached a thousand people, and they were still moving eastward. They were well-equipped, high-spirited, and supported by the Manchu nobles.
The Russians are building bastions on Sakhalin Island and Nurgan City.
Jiang Liu'er and the others were dormant on Sakhalin Island for two months, and it took them four months to escape from Sakhalin Island back to Liaodong. During this period, they experienced layers of obstacles from Rakshasa ghosts. It is not known who was lucky enough to be caught by these three. With the blessing of others, the three of them fled all the way to the west, but they were unhurt, which can't help but be said to be quite strange.
It should be noted that their chief officer Ma Shiying almost died on Sakhalin Island, and another chief officer Li Sanguang, Jiang Liuer saw one of his arms cut off by a Rakshasa ghost with his own eyes, and was killed on the spot by the hungry Rakshasa ghosts. Share food.
After these three months, the fifteen-year-old boy has a deeper understanding of the emperor's words to them when they set out from Shenyang at the beginning of last year:
What you have encountered is an enemy more ferocious than wild beasts.
The emperor should have known the face of the Rakshasa ghost at that time.
Note:
1. Nurgan City: Nikolayevsk, whose full name is Nikolayevsk-on-Amur, is a port city located at the estuary of Heilongjiang River. It is now part of Nikolayevsk Territory, Khabarovsk Territory, Russian Far East Federal District Yevsky County was the seat of Nuergandusi, its administrative agency in the Northeast during the Ming Dynasty. During the Qing Dynasty, this place was called Temple Street and fell under the jurisdiction of General Jilin.
